Saturday, October 19, 2013

Fresh off the twitter-griddle! Our weekly breakfast links offer our fav links to other blogs, web sites, images, and articles, all gathered for you from the Twitterverse.
• A history of hunks: how ripped bodies became a masculine ideal.
• "A Very Small Trifle": A North Briton's view of the American Revolution.
• Only seven inches tall, this 19th c. miniature corset was probably a salesman's sample.
• "To stew pears red", an 18th c. recipe.
• "Poor Nancy - she was a honey of a patriot, but the devil of a wife!" Revolutionary War heroine Nancy Hart 1735-1830.
• Why do witches wear pointy hats?
• Ghost stories from old New York: tales from the Revolution, restless Indians, haunted forts, and a drunk, headless actor.
• Parisian prostitutes, c. 1901: the impostors.
• A Roman bathhouse still in use after 2,000 years.
• The blue and white china that graced the sideboard at Emily Dickinson's family home in Amherst.
• The hierarchy of color: choice, price, and meaning of paint colors in 18th c. homes.
• A brief tour of the Folger Shakespeare Library's digital treasures - including a copy of Shakespeare's first folio that includes a child's doodles.
• Eadburh, 8th c. Queen of the West Saxons.
• An over-the-top evening cape, trimmed in white marabou, from the 1920s.
• An 18th c. summer manor in New York City becomes a respected Victorian roadhouse where Women enjoyed "immunity form affront."
• Oscar Wilde and his surreal speaking tour of San Francisco, 1882.
• Jeepers creepers! Why dark rides in amusement parks scare the pants off us.
• Heartbreaking: inside an abandoned public library in Detroit, now demolished.
• Advice for those living in 18th c. Oxford during student season: Lock up your daughters!
• The world's oldest cinema reopens - where the first films of the pioneering Lumiere brothers were screened.
• A newly digitized 1786 manuscript math exercise book from Virginia where enslaved labor features in quotidian word problems.
• The many historical, folkloric, and cultural connections between witches and trees.
• Letter written by 10-year-old Helen Keller found in Massachusetts Historical Society manuscript collection.
• Now at the Art Institute of Chicago: breathtaking 19th c. paintings and clothes featured in "Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity."
• Phenomenal craftsmanship: a rare 17th c. beaded christening basket.
• "Are not some of your large stock of white morning gowns just in a happy state for a flounce - too short?" A witty, gossipy letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, 1813.
• Body snatchers: a handy guide to the missing body parts of the famous and infamous.
• The maddeningly elusive dancing master.
• The backstory of wallpaper: the history of wallpaper from the paper-hanger's perspective.
• Beautiful lantern slides of Old London.
• In honor of Ada Lovelace Day: young Ada ignores Lord Byron to finish her math homework, as imagined by the incomparable Kate Beaton.
• The hideous skeleton of His Satanic Majesty, smuggled out of Japan and displayed in 1895 New York - the ultimate gaff!
• Sugar mills on sugar plantations in the Caribbean, 1665-1835.
• The problem for President Taft wasn't losing the weight: it was keeping it off.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

By all means, pass along the link, KatherineK! Part of the reason I put together the Breakfast LInks is as a kind of a cosmic pay-back. So many people on the internet are so generous with their knowledge and discoveries that they deserve a wider audience. Follow a link, find a new blog or website to follow, and share the wealth! :)

I visited that library often when I was a girl. So very sad...but definitely the way Detroit is going. *sigh*

As an aside, I heard about that violin today and ended up leaving a comment on that blog, but yes, it's quite probably it was Hartley's violin. The old school tanning process on the luggage and valises is what preserved so many papers and pieces of clothing. Bittersweet find, that.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.